Best Pickups Poems
Chicago's been dubbed the windy town,
but Great Falls has that tag nailed down.
If you're facing Montana's fierce wind,
you're moving where you didn't intend.
Prairie grass rolls like ocean waves,
tumbleweed mounds resemble graves.
Aspen leaves' fluttery swirls abound,
scarcely settling their golden mound.
Longhorns stay bunched within a draw,
hoping the wind will soon lose claw.
Snow gusts into drifts high and wide,
pickups and hay-balers shrouded inside.
Who sent this wild, careless wind
the bronco busters cannot unbend?
This, I suppose, could be left unsaid:
Keep those Stetsons jammed on your head!
Acoustic Guitar
My fingers dance on the slender body
I am harmoniously in love with it
It's always there to resonate my heart
I get drowned in its soft chords
Away from the world, in the parterre
We both go string labelling
With pronounced active pickups
It's semitones enter the fathoms of my soul
Contest-Music to my soul.
Spoñsor-Laura Loo.
OK, maybe he is right. Maybe a cowboy he's not. He is a mechanic, a
pediatrician, an obstetrician, a veterinary, a plumber (wells), a house keeper
(stalls), a blacksmith, a dietician, a truck driver, a farmer (crops), a carpenter
(corrals and maternity wards), a construction worker, a landscaper (fencing), a
teacher, a road grader (keeps roads oven year round), a hunter (hunts stray
critters), a trapper (beavers to keep our water ways open and skunks to keep our
sinuses working), a cowboy (cattle work), a welder, a rancher, a ranch hand, a
cowhand and a_______ I give, I give. He is a Jack of all Trades, but since his
name is Billy I can’t go around calling him Jack, so he will always be my cowboy
to me. P. S. he is definitely not a modern cowboy. No three wheelers, no
pickups, no motorcycles. He did his cattle work by horseback.
It was "Girls' Night Out"
At the local watering hole
So my bestie and me
Headed there at a stroll.
A crisp autumn night
And we both wore our furs
I joked she was a copycat
Saying she should change hers.
She stopped in her tracks
Her stare cut like a sword!
"It was only a joke!"
And then we both roared!
We got to the bar
And I held the door wide
Truly never expecting
What was to happen inside.
"We don't serve HER kind"
The barkeep sneered at me
"You can come in
But set that dog of yours free!"
Here I must tell you
I live in a town
With rednecks and pickups
And nothing much brown.
My friend was from Asia
Her coloring too strange
For these bigoted, brainless
Rejects from the grange!
My friend showed her teeth
Not exactly a grin
And one big guy in a wife beater
Stood up and moved in.
Before I could blink
Or throw a good punch
My friend ate that cowboy
Like some tasteless lunch!
And the others raced out
Slipping on fallen beer foam
So I sighed and began calmly
Walking my tiger home.
Quickly wake up, shower and shimmy
You're late for work and kids for school!
Eventually arriving, settling into the routine
Suddenly you realise you forgot something at home!
All's a mess, again you overslept!
Traffic's just crazy, your hairs a disaster
Barely time to breathe, let alone eat!
Afternoon pickups, late for hockey practice
Its homework and laundry, then off to bed
Awaiting the bustle that's sure to aggravate!
Hare Krishna's
In their Pickups
Depressed Comics
Down on their Luck
Teenage Girls
Screaming Meme's
Commie Pinko's
Leftward Leaning
Vincent Price
Flo and Eddie
Rodger Rabbit
Priscilla Presley
Nuns in Habits
Dwarf's in Ponchos
Deadbeat Dads
Munching Nachos
Right-Wing Nut Jobs
Trading Slogans
A few Hero's
Including Hogan
Are just a few of the sights you see
At the front gates of Graceland
Memphis, Tennessee
Buddhist Monks
With Electric Banjos
Holding Signs Up
Of Marlon Brando
Taxi Cabs
Blaring Show Tunes
Pregnant Women
Down-loading Soon
Derby Jockeys
Flying Monkeys
Kool-Aidholics
Skittle Junkies
Bozo The Clown
Bumper Stickers
Psychedelic
Crazed Toad Lickers
Rhinestone Cowboys
In their Skivvies
Gothic Girls
Heebie Jeebies
Are just a few of the sights you see
At the front gates of Graceland
Memphis, Tennessee
Blue Haired Granny's
In pink Moo Moos
Ballerina's In
Tattered Tutus
Mathematician's
Number Crunchers
Even have Some
Out to Lunchers
Model 50's
Do Wop Daddies
One More Round Of
Flo and Eddie
People Sneaking
Across the Border
Lonely Fry Cooks
Taking Orders
A Few Wannabes
Not Saying Much
Will The Real Elvis
Please Stand Up
Are just a few of the sights you see
At the front gates of Graceland
Memphis, Tennessee
Thank you...Thank you very Much
Ladies and Gentlemen
Elvis...Has Left The Building
There's a quaint little cross roads town that nestles in the shadow,
Of majestic Pikes Peak called Punkin Center in eastern Colorado.
The prime business in town is the Punkin Center Tack and Feed Store,
Where farmers and ranchers congregate to shoot the bull and more!
There you'll find fellers in bib overalls and John Deere tractor caps,
Cowboy hats, scruffy boots, faded jeans and greasy leather chaps.
Some spit streams of terbaccy juice - others enjoy roll-yer-own smokes,
And the air is rant with guffaws as they ply each other with bawdy jokes!
There are Ford 150, Dodge Ram and Chevy Silverado pickups galore,
Waitin' for their owners to load up on this and that from the store.
But they ain't in no hurry - besides it looks like a norther is on the way.
The Punkin Center Tack and Feed Store is a great place to idle time away!
Clyde Purpleears, the owner, stocks plentiful supplies for those in need:
Fertilizer, saddles, bales of hay, manure forks, hog and chicken feed,
Baler twine, hip boots for muckin' out the barn as well as various seeds,
Milk buckets, lariat rope, gloves, shotgun shells and stuff for killin' weeds!
Clyde displays the latest in coyote traps, steel posts and barbed wires,
Nose rings for randy bulls, post hole diggers and John Deere tractor tires!
As the shadow of Pikes Peak creeps over Punkin Center 'bout half past four,
Clyde shoos the loafers out of the Tack and Feed store and closes the door!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
it starts underneath a small table
near the entrance to a motel lobby
and grows with great speed and sprite
quieting the house-guest at the counter
as it flows - muted down the hallway
glass doors opened with dampened yawn
and it streams across the parking lot
as sedans and pickups suppress
carbon-laden coughs to sit sedately as
breezily it blows stilly past the
man mowing his lawn, now silent
to a Parish church down a block
with its burked* spire bells
silently it presses over covered acres
of rural pasture and time-laden wood
a great enlargement of un-din
no bovine low, or snap of twig
creeking waters without gurgle
flowing past, and around, and over
people, individually and whole crowds
without even a whisper of apprisal
covering vast space at un-supersonic speed
oceans without roll or roil of waves
still, it moves on over island and isthmus
continents languishing on quiet molten
their ridges and troughs without groan
as the entirety of sphere becomes hush
no noise, no sound around, surrounded
without the slightest sound instilled
in ear, in mind, in thought - in me
in my own near-deafness, I wonder
is it to be peaceful, tranquil, or
silence too vast without coo or cry?
© Goode Guy 2013-03-17
* http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/burke #2
1. A barrier intended to prevent escape
or intrusion or to mark a boundary,
the T-post-and-hogwire our neighbor put up
flush against the common one-lane road –
no shoulder, no turnouts. (If you break
down, you’re up against the fence.)
2. a receiver of stolen goods, one of those
faceless men who, in the dark of night,
could unload pickups full of our neighbor’s
stereo and hard-drive and everything else
that makes life worthwhile. (He says,
That’s why we need the fence.)
3. as a verb, to ward off, as he hopes
to keep felons off his property.
(Let them leave us alone, he says,
and rip off people without fences.)
4. to practice fencing, to parry
arguments by shifting ground. (We need
a fence, he says, to hold what’s ours
together.)
Part 2:
To the Inn
This is "the meaning", the miss with no clue. For a kiss when you're down and the out is in view. There is waiting in watching with no passing bye. Like listen and loving that binds every sigh. For pickups and let downs, He's down with each every road. With his sorrow and secrets to lighten your load. So many and marvel, He's a man on the go. To leave every fact(or) near the road Jericho. To find an each with AN always past the parts plus the lies. There to find a Dear Stranger who will always look in your eyes.
The Gathering
Brought together.
Late summer along the North Platte
At the wandering river bed flanked by cottonwoods.
They have been drawn, emptying out their small town for the celebration to come.
Driving in Packard’s, Ford Coupes, and old dented red Chevrolet pickups with hay stalks
and a pitch fork scattered in the bed.
Hot, steamy hot; hot enough to hear the corn grow in the silence of crickets and cicadas.
Women in their finery-hats, long cotton dresses, rolled stocking tops,
Tight uncomfortable church going shoes.
Talk about home and children and prices and school year to come, dreams.
Men leaning against the back drop cars.
Coats shed in the heat, braces hold the cotton trousers up to the shirts
Now stained with the sweat marks under their arms.
Well used hands with blunt fingers from the farm work and
Forearms from milking.
Talk of summer ball, American Caesar and the faraway places called Chosin and Korea.
Wooden hampers filled with cold chicken, home canned pickles, tomatoes and beans, deviled eggs,
Potato salad, iced tea in gallons, melting fresh churned ice cream.
Day runs over, complete for the celebration of joining two to make one
Forever, or at least until the end of their time.
Marty's Diner is a cozy rendezvous for folks of this wee country town.
People come from miles about to enjoy the fixin's fer which it's renown!
It ain't a fancy place - I s'pose there's maybe a dozen tables or so.
It's just Marty, the waitress Nadine and Joe the cook who run the show!
There's a 'liar's table' where guys meet ever' mornin' fer a cup o' joe,
To discuss the attributes of local women, the price of hogs and the world's woe.
Nadine scurries about joinin' in the banter makin' sure their cups is full.
Marty circulates about the place greetin' guests - things is never dull!
On rainy days, farmers park their pickups and settle in fer grub and beer.
They brag about their hound dawgs and gittin' ready for huntin' deer,
The high cost of farmin' and the neighbor's auction comin' up nex' week,
And when the price for corn, oats and soy beans is apt to peak
There's music playin' on KRCC, the local country and western radio.
People rave about the sandwiches and red hot chili concocted by Joe!
A favorite is 'butcher's revenge' (meatloaf) with gravy and smashed pertaters,
Garden fresh peas, a pair of biscuits and a salad with fresh picked termaters!
The Red Hat Society holds their meetin's there the first Thursday at eleven.
The Green Thumb Garden Club meets the third Tuesday at half past seven.
Marty, Nadine and Joe meet their patrons with a 'howdy' and open arms.
They welcome you like family - the fellership is one of its many charms!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
Spurs still jingle on booted feet,
And no one turns to stare.
"Howdy" is heard on any street -
Laughter's everywhere.
Old pickups are the wheels of choice -
Beats autos ten to one.
Horse trailers give the streets a voice
Where patchin' ain't been done.
On Friday nights the town is closed,
If football's bein' played.
The one main street is bein' hosed
While cheers are bein' made.
A skinny yellow dog walks 'round
Needin' to find some shade.
The dusty little one street town
Is hot as God has made.
He eyed the flagpole in the square
No shadow could he see
He raised his leg an' aimed it there
"You ain't no help to me".
He laid down in the sand and dust,
His chin upon his paw.
He yawned and thought,"My kind of town -
Beats all I ever saw."
10/31/2016
For contest My Kind Of Town
By Laura Dee Battle
June 12, 2013
I've realized
These smile lines
Are hypnotized
Through tired eyes
Make it whole
The heart you stole
No light is shone
I feel alone
Promises made
False serenades
Refusing to see
The space between
Cannot believe
How you and me
Endure the solstice
Of lonely nights
Let’s cut out the need for silence
My past now can only make sense
Seeing the honesty through these eyes
I can’t bear to have this pain disguised
My haunted past
Covered in glass
These gaping wounds
Re-opened soon
Accessories
And memories
Are what I have
To take me back
It’s only fair
These strands of hair
Will get too long
To sing our song
But could it be
Coming misery
Will like a tower
Wash to the sea?
Could we see hope float to the surface
And seal our doubts in this sarcophagus?
Could we see through the pain in these eyes
The silver lining through these trying times?
It’s not easy
To really see
Maybe this hope
Leaves me alone
I blankly stare
Through longer hair
Return this heart
From mountain air
We’ll understand
When holding hands
That what we own
Can hold up stone
From here on out
I’ll quell my doubt
Through painted lines
That speed up time
It’s only a matter of time
It’s only a matter of time
Before I hold you again
And bright eyes realign
*listening to...*
["growing old is getting old" by Silversun Pickups]
O Ye what are you waiting for?
Fly on the wings of hope,
This sky is waiting for you
The shadow is fed up of staying
Fly on fly on until you reach your goals
Obstacles are milestones to cross
Determination is a shield of dreams
Make courage your ally
Go past the mountains and valleys
Fly on; Fly on until you reach your goals
Start may look awkward
Initial hiccups will be pickups
You will master the art of killer instincts
Worries will evaporate with distinct
Fly on; Fly on until you reach your goals
Nothing is too big or small
Destination is giving you the call
If you fall then rise up again
Show your back to the walls
Fly on; Fly on until you reach your goals
Time is waiting to salute you
History is waiting to write for you
Books are waiting to catch your story
Your name will find place in the golden glory
You will be immortalized in everyone’s memory
Fly on; Fly on until you reach your goals